About

Many people are unaware of the vast amount of historical evidence there is for the trustworthiness of the New Testament — that section of the Bible that discusses Jesus and the first Christians. Without this knowledge, they reasonably assume that the accounts of Jesus are mere fables, stories that are not historically true. Often they consider that the original wording of the New Testament has been distorted as copies were made of copies over and over again for hundreds of years. Others have the concern that the bias of the original authors would have distorted their written records of Jesus’ teachings and actions.

Written without presuming prior knowledge of Jesus or Christianity.

Many of these same individuals, when shown evidence for the reliability of the New Testament, are eager to learn more. However, they often do not have any background knowledge of the subjects of history or Christianity. So this book has been written with as little jargon as possible, and with explanatory comments when technical language is unavoidable. The author has supplied a wealth of background information whenever experience — from the many conversations he has had over the decades — has taught him that it can’t be assumed.

Although there are a number of other excellent books that focus on the reliability of the New Testament, like all books, they can’t be all things to all people. For example, many of the books that present evidence for the reliability of the copying of the New Testament do so using many technical terms and assume that the reader has a good understanding of the topic already. Some are written for an audience that is competent in ancient Greek. Those books that do cover this topic in a more accessible way often don’t present much of the actual evidence, leaving the reader to rely heavily on the reassuring words of a scholar.

Book/Features

More than 104,000 words of text spread over more than 400 pages

More than 1,000 footnoted references,

Over 22,000 words of footnotes

Footnotes placed at the bottom of each page for easy reach

Easy to hold format (octavo size), pages have the following dimensions:

6 inches x 9 inches

152.4 mm x 228.6 mm

Author

Jonathan Clerke has a Bachelor of Science (Honours), and a Bachelor of Physiotherapy, both from the University of Queensland. He has co-authored articles in peer-review scientifc journals. This academic training has nurtured a strong research-based approach to examining information. He has applied these skills to some of the major questions concerning Jesus and Christianity over several decades. He has frequently spoken on Christian apologetics, and is a member of the Australian Society of Authors. Because he is not qualified as a historian, a critic of the New Testament or a philosopher, he has presented the evidence that has formed the basis of his conclusions. In this way, readers can independently evaluate whether such conclusions are reasonable. Similarly, when he has had to rely on the conclusions of others, he has sought out those scholars who have the relevant qualifications. Readers should have the opportunity to be judges. Judges do not have to be experts in forensics, ballistics and criminal psychology in order to weigh up well-presented evidence from experts on a shooting murder.